Saving the Union Avenue Methodist Church

Memphis Heritage is holding a meeting tomorrow, Thursday, May 27th, at 6 p.m. at their headquarters at 2282 Madison, to discuss the possible sale and demolition of the Union Avenue Methodist Church by pharmacy chain CVS. The church, built in 1923 and listed on the National Register, anchors the southwest corner of Cooper and Union, diagonally across from Playhouse on the Square's beautiful new theater.

Random notes:

• There's precedent for CVS to preserve a historic building due to public outcry -- the Scherer Building in Chicago. In fact, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has a complete initiative dedicated to the issue of chain drug stores destroying historic buildings.
  


• If you don't think the church is that great, worth preserving, then advocate for a quality new urban design that complements Playhouse, rather than ignores it. CVS also has precedents for that.
  Just saying "tear it down!" is to cede to the default -- anturban blight. Progress in Memphis' built environment is to be fought for, never assumed.
  


• We need to stop bashing Germantown Parkway to make points about Union Avenue. Let's stick closer to home and talk about the Medical Center from I-240 west to Dunlap. Devastated by hordes of parking lots built as enticement to commuters who didn't want to be there, and eventually weren't, the result is arguably the worst commercial strip in all of Memphis
  


• Crappy development threatens Playhouse on the Square's investment of money and vision in that spot of Memphis. Especially a crappy development in the literal center of their vision.
  
  See: A 270 degree panorama I took from the front steps of Playhouse on the Square.
  
  The threat to this vision should be enough to stop a bad outcome, except it's not.


• Preservationists and urbanists could combine forces with CVS to cajole or force Ike's/Walgreen's to sell CVS the soon to be vacant Ike's store on the southeast corner.
  


• Join the cause via the Save Union Avenue Methodist Church Facebook page.

5 Years at the Fairgrounds

On the grounds that were fair, I like the idea of Pretty Decent Lawn that will create a green axis connecting the old Fairgrounds gates* with the Liberty Bowl.

As a lover of gates, and those in particular,

I can't help myself.

Yet the larger Fairgrounds project is not only unbuilt, but under-demolished, under-visualized and incredibly under-imagined.

By fall 2010, we'll have the Lawn, the Liberty Bowl, parking and trees, the latter 3 of which we've already had for 40 years.

But we still don't know whether we'll keep the Coliseum, the Arena (along the axis of the Lawn), the Creative Center, the Pipkin Building, or what we'll do with all the empty space we will have even if we don't demolish any of those structures.

I don't think I'm just being an itinerant civic butthead to say that after 5 years of public meetings, public input, studies, committees, RFPs, ignored RFPs, demolitions, closings and evictions that we would should have a much stronger sense of what the Fairgrounds will become.

I know that large tracts of empty real estate render Memphis catatonic before their highest-and-bestest radioactive mega-value, but 5 years and counting and waiting should be a sign that we need another way to rebuild our city.

* In this rendering (the only one I've seen), the present gates don't appear. I don't know what to make of that except to say that I can't believe Fairgrounds nudgers and shruggers would have such bad taste as to not use them.

From the Overton Square Charrette

Just in time for the second public meeting (tonight, Tuesday, August 25th, 6 p.m. at Playhouse on the Square), here are some random notes and thoughts from/about last month's Overton Square charrette.

• The leaders of the charrette have created a great website, http://www.squaretalk.org, for the redevelopment effort. You can share your comments and ideas there.
  
  
  
  


• The leader of the charrette, Chooch Pickard of the Memphis Regional Design Center, acknowledged that a lot of folk weren't happy that it was held on a weekday. He said this session was just a beginning and there would be more sessions at more publicly accessible hours (see top).
  


• It was still packed.


• The participants weren't all preservationists (although it did have substantial preservationist participation). All were advocates for a quality built environment in the area known as Overton Square.
  


• Architects, planners, developers, businesspeople, students, preservationists, environmentalists and dumbass bloggers were there.
  


• The morning session began with a walking tour of Overton Square, followed by a general brainstorming session. I missed both of these.
  


• The afternoon session had the participants split into 3 groups:
  
  
  1. those who wanted to save all the Overton Square buildings,
  2. those who wanted to save some buildings and most of the facades,
  3. those who considered the entire site as a tabula rasa.
  
  The 3 groups (and sub-groups) brainstormed ideas for the area.
  


• The Regional Design Center has now posted its summary of the charrette plus the specific plans from each of the 3 groups.
  


• The original Overton Square founders were visionary businessmen with a great eye for Midtown commercial architecture but the monolithic ownership and regional parking lots they bequeathed are the root of the present problem.
  
  
  
  


• A great comment I heard from a charrette participant: the size of the Overton Square footprint overwhelms us with big dreams. Just start with something small -- and good. Begin.
  


• Monolithic ownership and dreams of the big score make the small, iterative difficult. In Overton Square, at the Fairgrounds, at the Pyramid.
  


• I voiced what many?most?all? probably thought was a dumb idea: Overton Square should choose Cooper-Young as a model.
  
  My explanation for my dumb idea: Overton Square should at least learn from its never so flashy, but ever so sustainable Midtown twin.
  
  Lessons like iterative, piecemeal development; reuse rather than rebuild; mixed-use; strong participation and input from its neighborhoods; distributed leadership; diverse ownership.
  


• Monolithic ownership, dreams of the big score and the urban scars left from a viral parking lot make following the Cooper-Young model difficult. But it's still a healthy, home-growing model to consider as we search for solutions to vitality.
  


• Low density, pedestrian discontinuity (e.g., Union Ave), and single use zoning and mentalities are obstacles for a vital street and public life in Memphis. Overton Square needs residential and residents to seed the street life.
  


• The biggest missed opportunity in Overton Square's history was the design of the now-defunct French Quarter Inn.
  
  
  
  
  
  Taking the spot of Solomon Alfred's nightclub, which was firmly and directly planted on the corner of Madison and Cooper, the owners pushed the hotel back from the corner (and the street), separated it with a parking lot, then walled it up. While the wall made the parking lot more palatable to the neighborhood, the lack of entrances and the parking lot barrier made the French Quarter Inn a non-presence in Overton Square.
  
  Had the owners placed it directly on and opening to the corner, the hovering hotel and Overton Square would have fed each other's energy and business, just as the district began competing with Beale Street and fake neighborhood bars in the 1980s. Disconnected, they both began a long decline.
  


• Playhouse on the Square, now building a cool new theater complex above the corner of Union and Cooper,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  has the most to lose from antisocial, butt-ugly neighboring development. But it also presents Overton Square development a new opportunity: the people pouring in from all over the city, region and country for plays, camps and events.
  
  This major cultural investment should not only be enough to stop a bad development, it should be more than enough to entice a great development to build next to, on to.
  
  
  

Inside the Overton Square

Memphis Heritage is hosting a meeting about Overton Square from 4-6 p.m. this Wednesday, May 20th, at their headquarters, 2282 Madison (at Edgewood).

Like the last public Overton Square meeting, this one also and unfortunately takes place during business hours. Memphis Heritage has told me that this was designed several weeks ago as a educational/informational meeting and has morphed into an advocacy meeting because of the recent contract on Overton Square. From here out, advocacy meetings will take place after normal business hours so members and concerned citizens can participate.

The Easy Way

I noticed Saturday that someone had ripped the modern covering off an old shop on Union Avenue, revealing this facade underneath.

Very beautiful.

But will the owners appreciate this beauty as they renovate it, or will they unnecessarily cover it with some other inferior facade, as their neighbors recently did?

This is what they shops next door used to look like, with a faux facade similar to that removed from the Easy Way #6 building.

This is what they looked like underneath, after the fake was removed.


Even unrenovated and blocked by a tractor-trailer, you can tell they're classic midtown storefronts. Notice the detailing on the top left.

Unfortunately, the owners didn't stop while they were ahead. They covered it, again:

Yuck!

We've recently seen the same metamorphosis at some shops at Madison and McLean.

1. Bland 60's era covering removed.
2. Nice original brickwork exposed.
3. Bland 00's era covering imposed.

Boring facelifts both, they've turned the banal into the unique into the banal.

Here's hoping that back on Union they'll STOP when they're already so much ahead.

Heed the sign!

The Concept or the Particulars

"I'm having a hard time following the whole concept and the particulars of it. We've been talking about this for a month now, and I don't feel like I know more now than I did at the beginning."

City Councilman Jim Strickland
talking about the plan for Fairgrounds redevelopment

The vision gets fuzzier with each published piece of information.

Overton Square Meeting this Tuesday

Memphis Heritage is hosting a 2nd meeting about the future of Overton Square. Be there-- because your voice makes a difference!

December 2, 2008
3:30-5pm @ MHI Headquarters, Howard Hall, 2282 Madison

Bring your thoughts, ideas and creative minds. Bring along your neighbor and let's put our heads together to save what was once and can be again the heart of Midtown!

I believe any project built in Overton Square should, at the very least:

• increase the walkability of the neighborhood.
• preserve and restore the urban form to the Madison and Cooper sides.
• build to an aesthetic standard equal to the Idlewild and East End neighborhoods (not Union!!!).
• build to a aesthetic and urban standard that complements the investments made by neighboring businesses, like Playhouse on the Square, Bosco's, Maggie's Pharm, Mr. Lincoln's Costume Shop, etc.
• build to a aesthetic and urban standard that strengthens the Heart of the Arts.
  

Belvedere Block Party 2008

A new festival in the cool unique location of the pocket park on the corner of Belvedere and Madison.

Progress on Union

Word from June West of Memphis Heritage:

We wanted to update everyone on the recent developments concerning the Cumberland Presbyterian Archives Building on Union Avenue and Chick-fil-A's plans.

Memphis Heritage has had two successful meetings with representatives from Chick-fil-A over the past several weeks to discuss plans for the Union Ave. site. As many of you know, Memphis Heritage was allowed to visit the entire building with 4 local architects to review the possibility of CFA adaptively reusing the building as their restaurant.

After the visit our architects realized this would not be possible based on the construction of the building; so we have been looking at ways to save the components of the building. A plan has been suggested to save the tower and the façade along Union Ave. with the restaurant behind this area. While this plan does not save the entire building, we feel this is the best alternative to losing the entire structure. Representatives from Cumberland Presbyterian told Memphis Heritage they would demolish the building if the CFA deal fell through so they would no longer have to deal with the preservation issue. They would then be selling just the land parcel.

CFA went to work to develop new drawings with this concept in mind. As of last Friday, June 6, we have had meetings with CFA and the Office of Planning and Development and have great hopes that this new plan will move forward. CFA would have an outside eating area behind the façade with plans for the new structure to be compatible with the existing building. Their plan would be to use salvaged bricks from the back part of the building to use in retaining walls, etc. The willingness of CFA to come up with an alternative for this site shows their interest in working with the local community and developing a compromise that will work. After finally getting to work with the CFA staff we have found them to be tremendously supportive of our preservation and community interests.

We will keep you posted on any new information when it is available.

Once again thank you all for your tremendous support. Without your emails and phone calls none of this would have been possible.

"Thanks for helping us give our past a future!"

June West
Executive Director
Memphis Heritage